The New Racism

This is just a half-baked idea so bear with me.

The other day I was thinking about how great it is that overtly racist comments and attitudes have become so taboo in our society.  Sure, racism still exists, but its open expression in the public sphere seems to have diminished significantly.  Even in my short (ahem) lifetime I've seen changes.  As kids we would smile and wink at mexican jokes, and though we didn't generally use racial slurs ourselves, old timers could still get away with it with little or no correction.  But you don't really see that so much anymore.  This is progress!  The problem isn't fixed, but progress has been made.  So why do I feel like people are just as intolerant as ever?

It leads me to believe that our problem as a people isn't one of racism.  Our problem is hate.  We seem to have a need to hate things or people or ideas.  Sure, racism had its day.  It was in style for a long time but now it is SO 1700's-1990's.  And now that it's socially unacceptable, we need to find something else to hate on.

So what's the new racism?  What is something that gives people the chance to openly express disdain or hatred?  What topic gives participants the opportunity to publicly demonize the other, and I mean literally declaring them to be evil?  Is it homophobia?  The gay rights cause has definitely evoked some hate-filled vitriol from both parties.  However, I think their cause is too similar to that of the civil rights movement and the prevailing attitudes of racial tolerance seems to be enveloping the gay rights cause as well.  So much so that the opponents of gay rights are rightly having to find other reasons to justify their opposition other than that of "it's just wrong."  Is religion the new racism?  If you asked a muslim right now they would probably think so.  However, religious-based hatred has always been around so I don't think it is necessarily a new avenue for hate.  It's more like an eight-lane freeway that's been around for a long, long time.

So, what is it then?  Let's say maybe I've accepted that hating people for the color of their skin or their sexual orientation is ridiculous.  And maybe I'm either not particularly religious, or I realize that religious freedom is a good thing, where can I funnel all my hatred then?  I have it inside me and it simply must be expressed, if not to the people around me, at least in a chat room or comments page somewhere.  So what's the topic then?  Where can I spew some venom without it coming back to bite me (pun intended)?  Well, how about President Obama or maybe Sarah Palin?  Yeah, that's pretty safe, and everyone else is doing it.

I'd venture to say that the new racism is politics.  That's not to say that racism is now dead, only that political rancor is the new socially accepted hatred.  Yes, politics have always been contentious, and maybe I'm just now old enough to recognize the rancor, but it just seems like it's progressively getting worse and worse.  Lines are increasingly being drawn in the sand.  It's more and more an "us against them" mentality.  Compromise is considered to be weakness.  It's not enough to disagree with someone, now it must be that they are actively plotting to destroy our country.  There are a lot of directly traceable contributing causes feeding our increasingly ire-filled political rhetoric: a bad economy, the rise of 24 hours news networks and the popularizing of opinion "journalists" (we even went so far as to have Glenn Beck asking church goers to "report" ecclesiastical leaders that promote social justice).  Just like there were a lot of other reasons for the overtly expressed racism of the past.  They have different root causes and different things that feed them, but there's no denying that the common thread between them is one and the same: a culture of acceptable hatred.

In that context it feels like all the efforts to eradicate racism or to tone down political rhetoric are like applying ointment to a cannon ball wound (to borrow Brian Regan's imagery).  We're merely treating symptoms of a much greater problem, leaving us to fall into the trap of using hate to fight hate.  Knowing this, is there any doubt of the timelessness of Christ's teaching "But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you."  This is the root of a gospel that was sent to save the world, and it needs more than just lip service.

So, let's not work to end racism, or homophobia, or religious intolerance.  Let's work on ending hate, and let's do so the only way hate can be effectively beaten, with love.  Not in a hippy-dippy "it's all good, man" kind of way, but in a proactive, even aggressive way.  How is that done?  Well, that's a question for my brother.  As I arrive at this conclusion I realize I've inadvertently wandered into his area of expertise.  So, maybe I'll leave the rest of the discussion to him.  After all, he's the professor.  I'm just half-baking ideas here.

The Weapon of Love.pdf


Session 2 - J. David Pulsipher, "The Ammonite Conundrum" from LDS WarPeace on Vimeo.